Trust me, we were biting our lip in anticipation of
the preview of the new version of Toast 6 Titanium for Mac from Roxio.
A few weeks ago we received an invitation for a meeting at Macworld
CreativePro Expo in New York to see and hear about the works-in-progress
Toast v.6.

We don’t have to tell you that Toast has been
the defacto Mac CD/CDRW and now DVD burning application for longer than
I can remember. I would have switched to a non-descript Windows box
if Toast 5 Titanium didn’t exist. So, when we heard weeks ago
about the works in progress, it was killing us not to tell you about
it, but honoring an embargo is a Boy Scout Merit Badge.

Roxio has indicated that this totally new version should
make it’s appearance sometime in September 2003. From what our
man Flint saw, the Roxio design team has been mucho productivo, with
an all-new user interface that makes use of OS X Jaguar GUI features.
Many of these interface features make for better, faster and simpler
use of Toast 6 Titanium.

With their new Universal
Audio Converter, you can now drag-n-drop virtually any iTunes and other
audio file right into Toast 6 for recording to CD. Universal Audio Converter
will even convert iMovie files. A refined Spin Doctor makes analog to
digital conversion for burning even simpler.

Quick Record allows
you to completely bypass a lot of the process steps, meant for neophytes
leading up to recording and after the burn is complete, which has driven
the experienced user nuts. Oh, we love short cuts! There’s also
a new interface for Toast to handle photos and video for editing and burning.
Motion Picture follows a similar path as iMovie, for turning your photo
files into the “Burns Effect” of pans, zoom effects, cross-fades
and imported soundtracks.

With the new flood
of DVD-R/-RW and DVD+R/+RW burners, Roxio has wisely included these and
essentially every DVD-RAM CD-R, CD-RW Combo Drive and Apple SuperDrive
made today.

Roxio said that Toast
6 Titanium will retail for US$99, but an upgrade price was not specified
as yet. You’ll need at least 200 MB of Disk Space on a Mac G3 or
up, running Mac OS 10.2.x with Apple Quick Time 6 or later.

We should be receiving
our evaluation copy in early September and we will have a full review
for you just in time for you to open your wallet and drag out that credit
card. We can’t wait!